


Find me in the dark, I'll be in the stars

by elfiepike



Category: Arashi (Band), japanese musician rpf
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Magic, community: je_otherworlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2011-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:27:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfiepike/pseuds/elfiepike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic is all around them, but Nino didn't expect it to explode quite like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find me in the dark, I'll be in the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gimmick_game](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gimmick_game).



> Written for [je_otherworlds](http://je-otherworlds.livejournal.com/) and originally posted [here](http://je-otherworlds.livejournal.com/11510.html). Many, many thanks to Aeslis and Phrenk especially for their support and excellent beta-reading skills, but also to Lalejandra and Harinezumi-kun and probably various people I'm forgetting for their advice and for listening to me complain. XD This is the longest story I've ever written, so I really needed it.

The parade is only just getting started when Nino pushes his way through the crowd, feeling sticky with the heat and close quarters. Sho and Jun are close to the front, though - a better vantage point than they'd managed the year previous. "Where's Aiba-chan?" Jun asks, stepping aside to make more space.

"He's getting more shochu," Nino says, pulling up at the sleeve of Sho's yukata to wipe away the sweat on his forehead.

"Because what you need is more shochu," Sho says.

"Yes," Nino agrees.

"Ah, it's starting," Jun shushes them. The whole crowd settles down with them, the first sounds of singing reaching them as the parade starts up properly, just as the sun sets over the tops of the nearby buildings.

The singer is accompanied only by a man carrying a drum under one arm, but her voice carries through the humidity, touches their faces like a gentle caress. Her kimono seems plain, her feet bare on the road - and then her song fills up the air with flowers and green spills down her back, staining the fabric and the roadway behind her. Nino can't help breaking into a smile at the illusion: clever and elegant at the same time.

Aiba breaks his concentration by elbowing him in the back. "Sorry, sorry!" he says, but when Nino turns to glare Aiba is already passing him a bottle, grinning. "She's great! This is already better than last year!"

"Aiba-chan," Jun warns, but still accepts the bottle when Nino hands it off to him.

Their school's float is last this year, after another half-dozen illusionists and animated stages, fire-workers and puppeteers, choruses and kids barely old enough to be doing magic at all but still performing the few tricks they had mastered with great enthusiasm.

"We're next, aren't we?" Aiba asks, too loud in Nino's ear. The four of them had finished one bottle of shochu and are working on the second that Aiba had tucked away in his sleeve: a spell that had failed many times but was so, so worth it. "What do you think Higashiyama-sama has planned?"

"Why don't we just _wait and see_." Nino rolls his eyes. Sho and Jun are laughing at them, but he doesn't care. The heat and the buzz of alcohol just make him want to lie down. In truth he's just as impatient as Aiba; the four of them are among the most advanced students at the school and they'd talked offhandedly about what they would do if they were selected for the parade: an elemental display, or a summoning, or charged objects. The point was moot, though, as Higashiyama never called for them and kept his plans secret.

Their float turns the corner, emerging from the slow evening shadows in a gradually expanding haze of glittering fireworks like fireflies. The set-up seems almost too simple: a man on a small round stage that floats several feet above the road, with several musicians accompanying it from the ground. The way the man moves, though - Nino's breath catches in his throat as he feels the first hit of magic spiral out from the him, a flavor on the back of his tongue that he can't name. The man's robes are cut to fly out as he spins and slides on the small platform, his movements smooth and sharp at the same time. The glow and fizzle of the lights catch on the metallic threading in his costume, dazzling and only serving to emphasize the way his hips roll and turn.

The man starts to sing, and Nino knows he can't be the only one who feels the power in his voice that gathers like a storm cloud.

"It isn't possible for one person to hold up that whole stage by themself," Sho murmurs, but in the way that means he can't see any other possibility.

"Is Higashiyama-sama bringing him on as a teacher?" Jun asks.

"It's a good sign, though, isn't it? For our school - that he's so strong?" Aiba interjects.

It probably is, Nino thinks. The feeling of a storm is so strong in the air and through his body that he almost looks up to see if the sky is full of clouds, but he doesn't want to look away - he doesn't want to miss anything.

The man raises his hands slowly into the air, his wrists crossed, his hands precise. He sings up into the sky and the sky answers, all the fireworks dying at once, once second of darkness before lightning rips out from the heavens and makes contact, dancing across his palms and down his arms, crackling across his whole body. He holds it there, dancing it along his skin, and then spins, the lightning becoming stars that fill the street with glittering shadows.

The crowd bursts into applause.

"So _that's_ why we were last," Sho says. None of them know how to respond, really: this is the most extraordinary display their school has put on yet, and Nino's gone to the summer festival every year since he first started coming to this school, seven years ago.

"I've never seen anything like that," Jun says, but it's clear he's already analyzing it and figuring out how to use it himself, how to teach it and apply it to his projects.

People begin to disperse around them, jostling their shoulders, but Nino doesn't even really notice. He feels like one of those sparks must have lit upon him, lit him up. He can't get over it.

"Nino," Aiba says.

Nino shakes himself, and turns to look at Aiba. "What?"

"You look totally out of it!" Aiba grins like he's caught Nino at something.

"I'm thinking about how you manage to get anything done with your brain," Nino says, meaner than he might be normally because he can't shake off this feeling, like he's not quite in his body the right way. "Oh look, we're out of alcohol! I'll be right back."

He knows they must be talking about it as he leaves - he can already imagine what they must be saying about him offering to pay: "Something must be wrong," "He must be sick!" - but he just needs a little bit of air.

-

He winds through the thinning crowd, the feeling of pins and needles settling into his muscles like his whole body has gone to sleep. It's unsettling but... nice. Exciting, almost, like the last few minutes before opening a spell-box to see the results. He thinks he should feel bad about being so short with the others, but he can't quite bring himself to feel guilty about it.

There's a performer standing at the counter of the sakeya when Nino arrives, the cut of his costume familiar but the crest hidden by shadows. Nino steps up next to him, smiling at his luck: usually the sakeya is crowded through the entire festival. He turns to say as much, feeling companionable, but can't help the "oh" of surprise that his mouth makes: it's the man from the float.

Up close, the man's face is immediately charming: sleepy-eyed and soft-cheeked, staring blankly while the merchant hunts through bottles. It takes him a minute to notice Nino staring, but when he does he shifts a little, his body tilting towards Nino, his lips curving up so minutely that if Nino hadn't been looking so closely he might not have noticed.

The tingling in Nino's limbs is even stronger, bright and sharp, but not painful: it feels like this man must have set something off in him, and it's only getting stronger. "It's you!" Nino says, smiling and feeling both foolish and buoyant.

The man points to himself, his eyebrows crinkling upwards in question.

Nino leans closer, not nearly as subtle as he usually might be; he doesn't even care that the alcohol he'd had earlier is no excuse. "Let me buy you a drink," he says.

"I've, I've already paid," the man says, his eyes crossing a little. Nino is standing _very_ close.

"Well, that's convenient," Nino drawls. "I'm Nino." He brushes his fingertips against the man's sleeve and can almost swear he can still feel magic slipping off of him, staticky and hot.

"Ohno," the man says.

"Oh-chan, then," Nino declares.

Ohno huffs out a little laugh through his pointy little nose. Nino is two seconds away from resting his chin on Ohno's shoulder and saying something really inappropriate.

The merchant finally returns to the counter, setting down a bottle with a _much_ more expensive label than Nino would have bought. He resists the urge to whistle at what it must have cost.

"Ah, but this," Ohno says, "I didn't pay for this."

"It's on the house," the merchant says, smiling warmly. "It's been a while since the festival has had such strength to it."

Ohno turns around from the counter, bottle in hand, looking dazed. Nino can't help but laugh at his face. "You're very impressive, Oh-chan," he says, and he wants to keep laughing from how perfect it feels, he and Ohno here, the evening air still hot around them. Ohno's robes glitter in the lamplight from the stalls, and his hairline is damp and shining from sweat.

Nino gives in, leans in close and runs his hands down Ohno's sleeves until he feels skin, the touch of it popping in his awareness, crackling with life and power. He's never felt this way before, not about anyone, not around anyone. He threads his fingers through Ohno's free hand, and Ohno flexes them together. He manages to step back again, just far enough to see Ohno's face. "Let's bring the bottle back to my room," Nino offers.

Ohno looks at him through his lashes, and then he purses his lips and nods, blinking slow and steady, his hand hot and sparking in Nino's.

-

They bump shoulders and stumble over each other's feet when they walk back to the school grounds. Nino pulls Ohno through the gates by their joined hands and past the classrooms and practice spaces, the garden and kitchens, all the way to his dorm. The grounds are dark, lit only by stars and the moon until they get to the dorms, where light still spills out of half of the rooms, even for the juniors, who have a curfew regardless of the night.

Nino laughs and waves hello when people call out to them, but doesn't stop. He can feel Ohno's heartbeat through the palm of his hand.

The room he shares with Jun and Aiba and Sho is cool and dark when he slides open the screen. "Welcome," he says, the atmosphere requiring a hush.

"Thank you," Ohno whispers back, conspiratorially.

Nino grins giddily at him, and shuffles him inside.

The lantern is hung up from a crossbeam in the center of the room the way it always is. Nino spells it to half-strength with a word, the light yellow and soft around the edges. He has to let go of Ohno's hand to open his trunk and pull out his futon, but he's quick about it, not caring about how haphazardly it lies.

He kneels deliberately next to it, and looks up at Ohno through his bangs, gesturing at the futon. "Please," he offers and insists. Even the one word feels like a miracle with the way his voice catches in his throat: standing under the lamplight, Ohno is turned to gold, small and sturdy and beautiful.

-

They sit together side-by-side on the futon, drinking directly from the bottle, but they're not even a third through it before Nino notices the way Ohno watches him while he drinks. Nino passes him the bottle, and watches in return the way that Ohno's throat works as he swallows. When Ohno tries to pass the bottle back, Nino puts it down, leans in, and chases the taste in Ohno's mouth instead, swallowing sparks.

The change in atmosphere is instantaneous. Nino can't stop kissing Ohno, can't stop touching him. Ohno's mouth is slick and wet and inviting, and every time their lips touch it sends something hot and sharp rushing through him.

Nino gropes awkwardly at Ohno's shoulders, pushing the robes off of them, then grasping at the thin robe underneath.

Ohno grabs at Nino's wrists, and pulls back. "Wait, just--" he doesn't bother to finish, instead moving to untie his sash. His robes slip open then, around his neck and arms, and Nino can't resist touching them, feeling Ohno's skin beneath his hands. They're not even _doing_ anything and it already feels like so much, like too much, heat pulsing in Nino's hands, in his mouth, wherever they touch.

Nino slides his mouth down Ohno's neck and Ohno makes a low, unsteady noise. When Nino tongues over his throat, Ohno makes the sound again, lifting his hips up against Nino's body.

Lightning flashes under his skin, lightning and heat and it's too much, too much, he feels it everywhere. When Ohno reaches for him, touches him through his yukata - even that is overwhelming. Nino moans against Ohno's throat and arches his back. He's lost, totally lost -they both are, lost in a feedback loop of skin and heat and the rising electricity between them. It's too much but they can't stop, he can't stop -

Hands, hands that aren't Ohno's, pull him backwards by his shoulders and he can feel something lash out of him. Someone yelps in pain and Nino struggles to understand what's going on: the others are there, somehow. Sho is saying something, something about Aiba, "Aiba-chan, are you okay? What the hell, Nino -- and, and you! What have you done to our room --"

Nino can feel it now, the magic coursing through him, pushing the seams of his body. He hasn't set off magic freely like this since he was going through puberty. His skin is on fire; what had seemed like too much before is definitely too much now, and his body rebels. "I'm going to be sick," he says, enunciating carefully through the crackling along his limbs and the conversation in the room. He leans up on his elbow, fireworks dazzling his eyes, and one of them - Jun, he thinks - helps him to the edge of the veranda. Nino vomits over the edge, feeling like his insides are clawing their way out of him, sparks dropping off his skin and into the dirt.

The last thing Nino remembers is Jun saying his name, over and over, and dazzling brightness filling up his vision.

-

Nino wakes up on his futon, his wrists and hands bound together in front of him and his head - his entire body - aching impossibly. He doesn't understand at first what's going on: though the morning light is dim through the screens, it makes his eyes hurt, and when he flexes his fingers they strain against their bindings but don't move. It's as if he is both numb and over-sensitive - and hungover. He moans pitifully, and tries to roll over away from the light but he feels too heavy to manage it.

"You're awake?" Sho's voice is gentle and low beside him.

"Yeah," Nino says. His throat hurts, as if he had been yelling all night. He opens his eyes carefully and looks up at Sho. "You look like crap," he says.

"Yeah, well," Sho says huffily, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it, "some of us had to take care of our friends who were having violently synergistic magical reactions to their one-night stands. Some of us were too busy to worry about our appearances when it seemed like maybe you were dying or trying to destroy the whole dorm."

Nino closes his eyes again. His head is pounding in time with his heartbeat. Any other time he would have something witty and cutting to say, but now his head hurts too much, and honestly.... "Sorry," he says.

Sho reaches down and pushes Nino's hair off of his forehead, his touch as gentle as his voice. "How do you feel?"

"How do you think?" Nino chuckles reflexively, but the sound is weak and fades quickly.

This time Sho apologizes, "I would give you something, but Nakajima-sensei said that with magic backlash this strong you just have to wait it out." He tilts his head towards Nino's hands. "That's why you're bound up, to prevent anything from spilling out in the meantime."

Nino blinks up at him for a long, slow moment. He feels like he should ask for more information or something but everything hurts. "Can I have some water, at least?"

When Sho nods, Nino struggles to sit up, slipping sideways with his hands bound so uselessly until Sho supports him. He ends up slumped over, his head aching intensely, his whole body sore and strange, but upright enough for Sho to hold a cup to his mouth.

Sho's hand is steady and the water is cool when he swallows.

"I don't think I've ever experienced backlash myself, but Aiba-chan went through it a lot when he first started showing signs," Sho explains, his voice steady like his hands. "Anyway, Higashiyama-sama is, well," he pulls the cup away, just a few inches, waiting for Nino to breathe, in and out, in and out, before offering it up again.

"Higashiyama-sama is _pissed_ ," Aiba says, sliding the screen open. One of his wrists is bound like Nino's, but a single glance - all that he can handle with the way his head aches - tells Nino that it's just a healing spell, and minor at that. There's that crazy look in Aiba's eyes that he gets when he's been up all night thinking exciting thoughts, like why do cats always seem to know when an earthquake is going to happen or how does a fire burn or whatever it is that fills Aiba's brain instead of useful information and common sense.

Nino can't stop the unhappy noise he makes at the sound of so much excitement, and the sudden light. "Why are you here," he complains weakly, listing to the side and leaning firmly against Sho. He can't even think over how strange and terrible he feels, like he's sliding in and out of focus.

Aiba kneels next to him on the other side and ignores his question completely. "So that guy, Ohno-san, it turns out Higashiyama-sama scouted him from an acting troupe in Kyoto and that's why he was in the parade! Higashiyama-sama wants him to continue his studies here and I guess his mom agrees so he's really angry with you, for fucking his new recruit, or," Aiba pauses to think, and Nino closes his eyes and presses his face into Sho's arm, "I guess he's angry with you for _not_ fucking him. Ohno-san, that is."

"Wait," Sho starts, and Nino can even hear him smiling, and imagines the stupid shimmering eyes he must be using on Aiba, "Higashiyama-sama's mother wanted Ohno-san to study here?"

"No, Ohno-san's mother - his family is from northern Edo," Aiba explains.

"Aiba-chan, seriously," Nino says into Sho's sleeve.

"Oh!" Aiba smacks his fist like a mallet against his open hand, the act of remembering being a very emphatic activity with him. "Higashiyama-sama said he wanted you to see him when you woke up, but then Matsushima-sensei said you would be delicate, and so he's coming to see you here."

"What," Nino says, pulling away from Sho too fast and groaning.

"Perhaps Aiba-kun is not the most efficient messenger," Higashiyama says from the veranda.

He cuts an impressive figure in his black kimono, silhouetted by the summer light behind him. Jun once told them that Higashiyama spelled all his robes to maintain the perfect temperature, but Nino's sure the man himself just is that composed all the time.

Nino struggles to at least sit upright; Sho and Aiba already sitting much more properly. "Higashiyama-sama," Nino says, and then stops. He doesn't know what he could possibly say.

"Just look around you, Ninomiya-kun," he advises, stepping inside.

Nino lifts his head. He'd been so busy feeling terrible that he hadn't paid any attention to his surroundings: he was still in on his bed, and he felt more awful than he ever had in his entire life, that was all he needed to know. But he does as Higashiyama says.

It takes him a minute to process what he's seeing. For a moment he honestly can't believe it - how could he have missed it?

Normally their room is quite neat and orderly. None of them have all that many things in the first place - school policy discourages it, to begin with, but it also doesn't make much sense to keep too many personal possessions when they are, as individuals, still learning how to control their abilities and _things_ tend to be the first victims. Of course, they are old enough that it barely happens anymore, so they do have _some_ personal belongings.

Or perhaps Nino should use the past tense: they _did_ have some personal belongings.

"I," Nino starts. Even the tatami is scorched in places, and ripped in others. Nino's guiltily impressed. "I'm," he tries again, but really: it must be a dream. How did this happen? "Sho-kun mentioned something... about synergistic magic?"

Higashiyama nods once, the curl at the corner of his mouth perhaps, if Nino's lucky, meaning that Higashiyama is more intrigued by the disaster than angry. "There is a specialist in town for the festival. She has very kindly agreed to instruct you and Ohno-kun in the basics of synergistic magic."

"We can't just," Nino tries to think; all of a sudden the strain of being attentive and upright seems to weigh heavily upon him. "We can't just promise not to do anything again?"

"No, Ninomiya-kun," Higashiyama says. "Once you've opened up a path for this kind of magic, it will always seek to go that way unless you can learn to guide it, to have it follow your desires." He nods to Aiba and Sho in acknowledgement. "I'll trust you to support Ninomiya-kun in this endeavor, gentlemen."

"Of course, Higashiyama-sama," Sho says, bowing his head.

"Nino - Ninomiya-kun - can count on us!" Aiba says, his voice slightly too loud. Nino flinches.

"And Ninomiya-kun," Higashiyama says, a note of finality in his voice, "do your best."

"I will," Nino says.

Higashiyama leaves, and they are all silent for a minute, a common result after Higashiyama has personally addressed one of them.

"So," Aiba interjects into the silence, "by sin - syner -"

"Synergistic," Sho supplies.

"By synergistic, he means sex, right?"

-

That is what Higashiyama meant.

Nino is brought stumbling and hunched even more than usual to the guest wing by a teenager in bright temple robes. He doesn't remember any visitors from the temple, so he guesses the attendant must have come in with the specialist for the festival, after Nino had left for town.

She was given rooms at the far end of the wing, shrouded from the midday sun under the branches of a huge evergreen tree that is visible off of the grounds for nearly a mile. The screens are closed when they arrive, and the attendant slides them open for Nino. "Please, go inside and sit," she says, entirely too perky for Nino's headache. "Koda-sensei will be back very soon."

Nino steps inside, and feels distinctly like he's entered another world. Tapestries hang on each wall, going from the ceiling to the floor and corner to corner excepting only the screens to the veranda, with rich, dark colors and intricate patterns that seem to change shape when Nino stares directly at them. Even if they did hold still for him, it's almost too dark to really see, the light coming from a single standing lamp in the center of the room.

There are three cushions on the floor, plain and dark and set out in a triangle around the lamp. Nino sits on one, balancing awkwardly with his hands still bound. He stares at the lamp while he waits, feeling strangely more at peace the longer he sits there. It's probably a spell, he thinks, and only notices the words inscribed into the paper as he thinks it. He peers closer to read them; the spell looks like it was pressed into the paper without using any ink whatsoever, and Nino is fascinated.

The screen slides open again, and Nino looks up, distracted. He hadn't noticed it closing at all.

It's Ohno. Ohno and, right behind him, a woman in a red and gold kimono who can only be the specialist, but Nino still can't look away from Ohno for a moment: the low light catches on curves of his cheeks and the downturn of his nose, the cowlicks in his hair.

Ohno looks up and meets his eyes. Nino is aware for the first time that day of how much the bindings are really doing: he wants more than anything to reach out with his senses and just feel Ohno's presence the way he could last night, that sparking power that filled a space beyond Ohno's body, but everything is muffled.

"You have straw in your hair, Oh-chan," Nino observes.

"I slept in the stables last night with Matsumoto-san," Ohno says. He shuffles in, his hands bound like Nino's, and sits down on one of the other cushions. There's a grace to his movements that seems entirely unconscious and almost at odds with his blank expression and the old man curve of his shoulders, like he takes it completely for granted that his body will do what he asks of it.

Nino tears his eyes away. The specialist is looking at him and smiling like she knows a secret about him; her hair is braided over the top of her head like a crown, but Nino immediately thinks that she seems far too casual to pull off any sense of regal nobility. He stares back, both defiant and a little unnerved at being caught out.

She nods at him. "Good afternoon, Ninomiya-kun."

"Something like that, I'm sure - Koda-sensei," Nino says. He can't bring himself to be actually rude, but he wishes he could, to protect himself from the way she looks so frankly from him to Ohno and back again.

"So," she says, "what do you gentlemen know about sex magic?" She seems like she's enjoying their obvious discomfort.

"Not as much as I know about the magicless kind," Nino quips, simultaneously taken aback and admiring of her forwardness.

Ohno just squinches his eyebrows together.

Koda-sensei smiles wider, her eyes crinkling up with entirely unnecessary amusement. "Let me make a little more space for us." She reaches out with both hands and draws her fingertips down the frame of the lamp and it obligingly splits in four directions with a pop; each part hops across the floor to a corner of the room, but the light itself seems to stretch, and they stay lit in the center even as the lamps fill up the walls.

Her nails are glossily lacquered, red and gold to match her kimono, and they glow for a moment before fading. Nino is already trying to figure out how the trick worked - was it spelled into the lamp itself, like the calm spell? Was it spelled into her nails, somehow? - when Koda-sensei speaks again. "Sex magic," she says, clearly at ease discussing something most would blush about, "requires a great deal of compatibility. There are other forms of paired magic that don't necessarily require two magicians to otherwise work well together - I'm sure you both have studied that a little, right?"

"Like the fire partner exercises," Nino says, "when one person makes the spark and the other opens up the wood to being burnt." It's one of the first methods they're taught at this school, essentially as soon as a student shows any sign of being able to control their abilities. Higashiyama maintains that it teaches a solid sense of boundaries: this is your magic, and this is your partner's; this is what people can do when they work together.

Koda-sensei's eyes sparkle with an infectious interest under her long black lashes. "Exactly! In that example, while both magicians are working to the same end, magic itself is still very segregated between them." She holds out her hands, palm down to the ground and six inches apart. "The magicians, the magic - none of it touches. Synergistic magic, at its most basic, requires that the magicians involved are in harmony, that their magic bend and flex together." She demonstratively weaves her fingers together, her hands otherwise still mostly parallel to the floor. Her nails flash again in the light. "The result can be more powerful than the two originating magicians are, because of how the magic can interact and amplify.

"Sex magic takes it one step further." She presses her palms together, so that there isn't a single gap between one hand and the other. "And the results can be even more - remarkable."

Nino flashes back to the destruction in the dorm, and his ears grow hot. The more Koda-sensei talks about magic, the itchier he feels under the bindings. "So then," he interjects, "Oh-chan and I are extra-compatible," which, if he thinks about it, he immediately likes, as if it's natural and right that he and Ohno fit together like that. "What exactly will theory teach us? We both - we both know how to have sex, or can figure it out together, I'm sure." He's embarrassed, and annoyed about being embarrassed on top of it, but he's also curious. He catches Ohno looking at him, but Ohno shifts his eyes away fast.

"Just like you know how to talk, right?" Koda-sensei asks, in that leading way that teachers sometimes use to point out the flaws in a student's argument.

Nino raises an eyebrow. "Let's say yes."

Koda-sensei speaks quickly, engaged in the topic. "Don't you remember when you first felt magic going through you? Don't you remember being a child, and suddenly you couldn't say anything without that tingle in the back of your throat, just waiting to escape?"

Put that way, of course Nino can remember. It happened almost overnight: one day he could talk and play and help his mom around the house - and the next morning everything was weird. Colors were intense and strange, like he was looking through cloth at the world, but one that made things have more depth, more clarity. That tingle in the back of his throat - it was there, but it was in his hands, too, and his feet, and along his cheeks.

It took his mother almost a week to notice that his futon had started to bulge our where his hands gripped it at night and where his face rubbed against it while he slept. When they opened up the seams, the stuffing pulsed steadily before their eyes, a constant steady beat where Nino could always hear it.

"I couldn't touch anything," Ohno volunteered. "Everything went funny when I touched it, so my mom made me wear gloves. But then the gloves turned strange, too." His gaze goes far away, and Nino imagines for a second what Ohno must have looked like as a child, the same round cheeks and lost expression.

"When you were young," Koda-sensei says, light catching on her earrings as they swung forward, "your door for magic opened, and you had to learn how to guide magic through your body. Now, together, you've opened a new door - but magic already flows through you so strongly every day that a new path for it is like opening a floodgate. By yourselves, as powerful as you are - well," and Koda-sensei grins impishly, "you saw what happened. I'm guessing that you had barely kissed before it started getting out of hand."

Nino feels himself blushing, he can't help it. "So," he starts, but he doesn't think he can quite bring himself to be so bold as to ask if she's going to teach him and Ohno how to fuck, even if that seems pretty clearly like what she's going to do. He sneaks a glance at Ohno, but isn't sure what his expression means.

Koda-sensei claps her hands together. "Enough theory! Let's get started."

"But," Ohno says, "our hands," and Nino realizes that maybe Ohno's stillness is less natural and more because of that same feeling Nino has: like he's off-balance without that reaching touch.

The door slides open again, and this time two people enter: one of them is the girl who brought Nino to the room, and the other is a nearly-identical girl in matching temple robes. The first carries in a small, round table, setting it in between Nino, Ohno, and Koda-sensei, and the other holds a tray with a teapot, three cups, and a dish full of sweets and crackers.

"We're going to remove your bindings now," Koda-sensei says, and obediently the two attendants each pull out a small knife, the kind with a clear glass blade designed purely for spell-casting. "Hold out your hands," Koda-sensei instructs, but genially: they may not be in the position to refuse but she doesn't seem interested in holding that over them.

Nino and Ohno do; the second the knife touches the bindings they fall away, shrivelling to dust. The feeling rushes into Nino, that sense he had gotten used to, taking it for granted the same way he does with his sense of touch or sight. It's a relief at first to have it back, but Nino notices almost immediately what Koda-sensei had been talking about: it hasn't been ten seconds and he can feel everything pulling towards Ohno, bright and tingling.

It's all he can do to pay attention to Koda-sensei's flashing nails as she pours the tea. "Please, help yourself," she says, and passes them each a cup.

Ohno reaches almost immediately for a daifuku mochi, putting almost the entire thing in his mouth at once. Nino laughs before catching himself, and hides his face behind his cup. "Ah, delicious," Ohno says, chewing. Nino is unbearably charmed.

They snack in silence for a few minutes. Nino ventures a large, sweet senbei in between sips of tea.

"The mouth," Koda-sensei says, "is the first way you learn the world, before you can move around and explore it for yourself. You put your parents' fingers in your mouth, and food, and toys. Can you feel it, the way your mouth is learning, the way your body takes in something and makes it your own?"

Nino is surprised when Ohno nods. He can't feel that in particular, he doesn't think.

Koda-sensei turns to Ohno. "Ohno-kun, can you feel it in Ninomiya-kun?"

Ohno looks at Nino, frowning in concentration. For a second nothing happens, and then slowly Nino can feel Ohno's magic coming through him, unsettling and heart-racingly strange. He's never been so aware of his body as he is now, feeling Ohno's magic lightly touch in his stomach, his throat, his tongue.

He didn't even know anyone could do that.

"Ninomiya-kun," Koda-sensei prompts, "remember to swallow."

He does. His mouth is dry. He sips at the tea. Swallowing takes intense effort and concentration, leaving him shaky and strung out.

"I'm sure that's enough, Ohno-kun," Koda-sensei says.

"What just -" Nino starts, then has to swallow again. He actually felt Ohno leaving his body. He thinks he might vibrate out of his skin.

"Ohno-kun," Koda-sensei says, and Nino realizes how grounding her voice is, like she's one step from singing them to calm, and it works: his heart slows, and his fists unclench.

Ohno looks dazed, almost glazed over.

"What was that like, Ohno-kun?" Koda-sensei refills each of their cups.

Ohno blinks, his whole face moving at once. "It was," he starts, and he goes distant again. "It was like feeling it in myself, but... in Nino. And Nino was in there, too."

Koda-sensei laughs, and Nino thinks that in any other time, he'd be laughing too; instead, he stays quiet, and sips his tea. He wonders if his perceptions are changing all over from meeting Ohno: even the tea tastes unlike anything he's tried before. "This tea is unusual," he says.

"I was wondering when you'd notice," Koda-sensei says, pleased, as if Nino has lived up to her expectations. "It's honesty tea."

"And that means...?" He puts his cup down on the table.

"The mouth isn't only good for experiencing the world. It's also good for relating our experiences, our thoughts and feelings, to others. Tell me, Ninomiya-kun, when did you last have sex?"

He wants to tell her, but he doesn't want to tell her: Nino hates truth spells. "I don't think that's any of your business," he gets out.

"What about Ohno-kun, is it his business?" There's something about her smile that is all too knowing - smug, even if she's otherwise very open and friendly.

Ohno stares at Nino, looking at his mouth again. Nino swallows again. He's sure he can feel the weight of Ohno's gaze on lips.

"I." Nino takes a breath, and tries to get his thoughts in order. "Last week. There's a woman in town - it's not serious. We just get together sometimes."

When he looks up, Ohno looks away.

"What did you do with her?" Koda-sensei's voice is doing that thing again, smooth and low. Her interest would be unprofessional if her profession weren't teaching people how to have sex, Nino thinks cynically.

"That time? We - we both had the afternoon free. We went to the river. I used my hand on her, and then - my mouth." The words keep being tugged from his mouth, unbidden. "After she's come, she lets me thrust between her legs and then - before I come - she'll use her hand on me. I haven't come inside her," he clarifies, his face so hot.

Her name was Maki, and they'd met through a friend of Jun's. She was sweet.

Koda-sensei turns to Ohno, apparently satisfied by Nino's response. "What about you, Ohno-kun?" she asks. From where Nino sits, her attention seems too personal, too intent - he feels a possessive pang in his chest. "When was the last time you had sex?"

Ohno looks down. He smooths his hands down his knees. "In Kyoto," he mumbles. "The night before I left. So, two nights ago."

"What did you do?"

"He woke me up in the middle of the night... He was sad. He," Ohno stops.

"Take your time," Koda-sensei says.

Ohno clutches his knees, his knuckles almost white. Nino wants to know what the drug feels like for him, what it would feel like to brush his magic sense through Ohno's body right now.

"He woke me up and he was sad so I kissed him," Ohno says. The slow, stuttering way he speaks slides right under Nino's skin and catches and clings. "He held my hand and asked if we could - if we could fuck again, one last time."

He falls silent for a long moment, struggle evident on his face in how his eyebrows draw together and his chin pushes forwards. He licks his lips, leaving them glistening in the soft light. Nino waits for Koda-sensei to say something, to ask him to continue, but she doesn't, simply watching Ohno with a measured gaze. Nino thinks he's about to burst from waiting and watching.

At last Ohno looks up from his knees, first at Koda-sensei and then at Nino. He flinches, and the tendons stick out on his neck for second. "We, I like it when," he starts, then blinks, and breathes, and the words come tumbling out all at once, straight out of Ohno and into Nino: "He was really gentle, when we kissed, and I told him he shouldn't be gentle because I wanted to remember him."

Nino imagines it, imagines what Ohno might look like, half-asleep, rolling over for Nino - rolling over for this unnamed man - and asking for it, sleepy-eyed and breathless. He thinks Ohno can see it in his eyes, the way Nino's thinking about it.

Ohno gulps and looks away, and the air feels heavy on Nino's skin between them, heavy and hot. "He pulled my hair when we kissed," Ohno says, "and we got out of our yukata and he held me down on the futon, held me down with his hand over my wrists. I was still sort of asleep when he started - fingering me open, but he kept pinching my nipples, and my neck, and my sides. He kept stopping and starting when he fucked me, and he would hold my throat and let go. It seemed like it would never stop."

Every word out of Ohno's mouth only gets more rough and low, practically visible like they're written in light and heat above the table or on Ohno's skin. Every thing Ohno says only makes Nino want it more for himself. He's hard and ready, his senses crackling with it.

"He made me come first," Ohno says, licking his lips again, glancing up at Nino through his lashes, "and then made me hard again." His eyes seem to glow. Nino can't look away, he can't. "He just kept touching me - touching me and pinching me. He let go of my wrists but made me - he told me to hold myself open for him, and -"

Power arcs between them, and Nino's spine is shocked straight, the sensation going straight down his body, from his face and his fingers, along his chest and belly and dick, all the way to the soles of his feet. He can hear himself panting for air. He can't understand what he's seeing, the afterimage burned into his retina: Ohno's open mouth slippery with magic, the fluttering of his eyelids shedding sparks.

"Enough." Koda-sensei's calm, smooth voice cuts between them like the knives had cut through their bindings, the word imbued with power, but Nino is still on edge, breathing too fast and caught up in power.

" _No_ ," Nino protests, knowing only as the word leaves his mouth that he shouldn't have said anything, the power in his voice reverberating across the room, shaking the table. The lamp light flickers out for a second, and then Ohno scrunches up his face and gasps, a sharp, shocked inhale, and Nino is in his body with him, flying along his bones and muscle. He can't stop himself from trying for more - but it's too much, and he snaps back into his own body, coming hard and shaking, and Ohno goes taut and then flies back. The tapestry bulges out impossibly to catch him, glowing where he lands, the colors changing and then melting back into shape as it sets him on the ground.

Koda-sensei is beside Ohno before Nino's even realized what happened, cradling Ohno's head onto her lap, smoothing the lines off his forehead. Ohno seems almost unreal against the bright red of her kimono, a soft outline of himself. Nino tries reaching out with his hand, and then with his magic, reflexively, the power painful and sharp--

The attendants are there, one holding him back, forcing his wrists together, and the other binding them, the paper crackling as it traps him inside himself. The feeling is immediate, a door slamming down on that pathway in him. He gasps for breath, stifled and hot. He feels numb all the way up his arms.

When he can, he sits up and off of the attendant. The other has already moved on to Ohno, spelling the binding on, Koda-sensei's nails sharp where she holds Ohno's arms. "Good work, Ai-chan," she says.

Both girls have left, taking the table and tray with them, by the time Nino feels he can speak again. The words leave his body reluctantly, coming out rough and ragged. "Were you expecting that to happen?"

Koda-sensei raises an eyebrow. "Synergistic magic, Ninomiya-kun. I'll be very surprised if that's even half of what you can produce together." Still, her sense of poise seems somewhat forced; Nino finds that he's reassured that she can lie about something like that. He doesn't want to know how many other people her tapestries have had to rescue.

Ohno breathes in a noisy inhale, his head shifting from one side to the other in Koda-sensei's lap. Nino stares hard, overextended, more than a little worried that what he did - what they did - has actually hurt Ohno, but Ohno sits up, careful but apparently unharmed.

"Oh-chan," Nino says feelingly.

Ohno blinks, then finds him in the room and smiles slowly. He looks up at Koda-sensei, then back at Nino. "Why am I over here?"

Koda-sensei laughs, though not meanly; rather, it's loud and bright like her kimono or her nails, and openly affectionate. "I think that's enough for today."

"But," Ohno says, gesturing feebly with his bound wrists.

"Soon enough," Koda-sensei reassures him, then looks between him and Nino, smiling with a confidence that seems ill-founded to Nino. "Just think: with your voices alone, you could do this much to each other. Tonight, remember what it felt like, to have magic rushing through you." She draws her hand through the space in front of her, from her neck to her hips, her nails glittering. "Make a space for it. The only way you can prevent it from being destructive is to understand it and use it."

"You make it sound so easy," Nino says, simultaneously sour and wistful.

"That _is_ the role of the wise elder," she says, and Nino snorts at the idea that she's a day older than twenty-five, if that. She stands, and they stand too, awkward and exhausted.

"Sleep well, and I'll see you tomorrow, gentlemen."

-

After that, the summer settles into an undeniable rhythm. Every day Nino sleeps in, and then eats lunch with Sho and Jun, or Jun and Aiba, or Aiba and Sho, and doesn't ask about where the missing person is - he assumes and hopes that they're with Ohno, feeding him while his hands are still confined the way that one of them always does for him. He doesn't notice hay in Ohno's hair anymore; he guesses that someone must have found a place for him to sleep.

At some point in the afternoon, one of Koda-sensei's attendants will fetch him, and the lessons will begin: She tells them to pay attention to how magic flows into their body, to let it passively enter them, to understand what signals it's sending them, and then smooths thick scented oils over their temples and down their necks. Nino spends almost an hour with Ohno blindfolded and breathing right on top of him, static passing between them, setting his nerves on fire but all Koda-sensei would say is, "Breathe, Ninomiya-kun," and, "Stay still, Ninomiya-kun," and, "What can you tell about Ninomiya-kun, Ohno-kun?"

"He's excited," Ohno says, his mouth open while he thinks. His eyebrows are just barely visible over the top of the blindfold, curving up and together, crinkling in the middle of his forehead. Nino wants to smooth it out, to hold Ohno's face and breathe with him, against him, but Koda-sensei expressly told him to hold still, to not let his magic search out for anything, to simply sit, so Ohno could take his time.

Ohno sits back on his heels. Ohno never seems to have trouble following her instructions. "His power is - shivering and sharp," he says, "but in a good way."

Then Koda-sensei puts the blindfold on Nino, and it's twice as unbearable, but somehow he makes it through, even with Ohno's scent filling him up and clinging to him long after they've parted ways.

Another time, her attendant Nono shows up late in the day with a thin white yukata for Nino to wear; it seems especially plain held up against her temple robes. They'd switched from thick bindings around his wrists to thinner ones that wrap around and around his wrists and up past his elbow - finer motor skills are still difficult, but he can get out of his regular yukata and into this new one with only a little trouble.

Then, she leads him not to Koda-sensei's usual room but to the bath house, where Koda-sensei already lounges, sitting on the edge of the bath, her own yukata, bright and butterfly-patterned, pulled up behind her.

Under the water, her toenails are painted, too.

Their yukata are clinging and translucent within minutes, but they stay in the bath long enough for their hair to be limp over their foreheads and their fingers and toes to wrinkle up. Koda-sensei has them push and pull their magic through the water itself, and then across its surface. She trails her hand into it and tells them, almost absentmindedly, to go back through the basic partner exercises, the ones that don't require any kind of synergy at all, just enough skill to keep control. So Nino pulls a thin line of water into the air, and Ohno sings a basin for it out of the steam, his voice wavering as the basin fills up and spills over and Koda-sensei continues to swirl her hand and make tiny whirlpools.

Nino thinks probably about a thousand times that he can't keep pressing on. Through it all, a kind of waiting settles over Nino: waiting for Koda-sensei to say that they're ready, waiting for summer to end, waiting to touch Ohno. Waiting and thinking he can't possibly wait any longer, going crazy from waiting and from holding his hands still and the bindings chafing against his face, and then continuing to wait.

-

There's another festival at the end of the summer. Koda-sensei dresses up especially for it, the bow of her obi almost trailing to the ground, and Ai-chan and Nono's robes are bright blue to match.

They don't take off the bindings, but treat the afternoon as a holiday nonetheless. Nino and Ohno walk behind Koda-sensei, and Nino convinces Ohno to make up stories about the other festival-goers. Ohno's face is mobile with ridiculousness as he imitates and makes fun, breaking character to burst into giggles when someone notices them.

Koda-sensei gets really into catching goldfish, and draws a crowd as she curses loudly, losing one after the other. Nino can remember a time when he would have been embarrassed for her and how she changes from elegant to ungainly when she tries to play fair and not use magic, but now he just leans onto Ohno's shoulder and laughs. Eventually Ohno has to catch a goldfish for her, and then Ai-chan carries it carefully in a cup for the rest of the night. Koda-sensei buys each of them takoyaki and grilled mochi until they can't eat anymore.

They stay for fireworks. Nino holds Ohno's hand tight in his, deciding that nonchalance is the better part of valor, and doing his best to pretend that it's enough, just as it is, that he doesn't need anything more. He ignores that muffled sensation coming through the bindings, that press and desire that is simultaneously magical and not.

Koda-sensei leaves them when they get back to the gates of the school. "I'll see you both tomorrow," she says, the same thing she always says, and Nino resists the sudden urge to - to scream or bite or just generally destroy everything in his sight. She's here to help them, he knows.

Nono and Ai-chan take Nino and Ohno in their separate ways. Nino is glad that the dorm is empty, everyone still out at the festival. He pulls out his futon and lies down on it, falling asleep dissatisfied and alone.

-

When he dreams, though: he's at the beach. Nino hates the beach - he's always been very prone to seasickness, and even looking at the ocean reminds him of that sometimes - but he doesn't feel uneasy at all.

The air is thick with humidity, even as wind pushes through his hair. The clouds dark and growling.

There's a light coming off the water, coming out of it from a single point, stark and bright and fluctuating in sharp angles. He walks towards it, sand damp under his bare feet. The hair on his arms, his legs, the back of his neck all stands on end.

Ohno comes out of the water, stepping carefully on the waves. His clothing is wet but his hair is perfectly dry. He opens his mouth when he sees Nino and says something, pointing, but Nino can't hear him, Nino can't hear anything with the wind rising, blowing sand and salt air into his face.

He can still feel it, though, when lightning arcing out from Ohno's body - he can feel it in his bones and in Ohno's bones, can feel the way it gathers from the tip of his head and the soles of his feet, from his back and his thighs and the fine tendons in his wrist.

And he can feel it when it hits him, intense pressure and heat and light racing along his entire body and inside of him, pulling everything from it that it can reach from everywhere at once - he is no longer in his body at all but light, nothing but light and energy, snapping back to Ohno, closing the circuit -

He wakes up on his futon, Sho's snores startlingly mundane in the sudden dark. Something's different. He still feels like he's dreaming, but - something is different.

His bindings are gone.

He sits up, holds his arms out in front of him. They fairly sparkle with energy. He can feel everything more sharply; he doesn't need light to know that Aiba has tangled himself up in his blankets, or that Sho is sleeping curled up like a kid. The very air has a presence that he can feel.

Ohno - Ohno has a presence that he can feel, a glimmering thread of magic, tugging insistently at him.

He thinks, _is this a test_ , and goes to Koda-sensei's room.

Koda-sensei isn't there, but Ohno is, crackling with power, like he stepped straight out of Nino's dream, lighting up the dark.

The screen slides open with barely a raised hand, and they go in together. The room fills up with light in flashes and bursts, not enough to really see anything with but Nino doesn't need his eyes, right now, feeling where everything is with his magic, his power, and feeling the way Ohno reflects off of it all.

The door slides shut and they touch for the first time unsupervised and at full strength, just their hands, and Nino thinks he might die from it. Ohno's palm against his is hot and staticky, literally shocking. Nino holds on tighter, pulls Ohno flush against him and rides out the shocks, which come in waves until Ohno moans. Ohno's hard through his yukata.

The light evens out, pouring into the corners and along the seams of the room.

Was the bed there already? Did they call it out of the air? Nino doesn't care.

They get clumsy when they take off their clothes, too many hands or not enough but each touch reinforcing their connection, until finally they're on the bed, kissing and touching skin to skin all over. Every time Nino closes his eyes he can see the afterimage of Ohno burned into him from being so bright with power.

 _I wanted to remember him_ , Ohno said. Nino wants Ohno to remember him, so he grabs at Ohno's hair, and pinches and pulls at his body. Ohno's moans into his mouth, and Nino swallows sparks.

Nino's so hard. "What do we do?" he demands. Ohno is blinding and perfect, hot and charged.

"Anything," Ohno gasps, "anything you want."

"I want everything," Nino says, serious and low, then leans down and grips Ohno's shoulder with his teeth. Ohno cries out, his hands scrabbling at Nino's back, grabbing Nino's ass and then rolling them over.

Nino lets go, and breathes noisy and wet through his mouth, then closes his eyes and pulls Ohno's hand to his chest. He closes his eyes, and then Ohno's magic seems to fall into, fill him up with sparks. He spreads his legs below Ohno, gripping Ohno's wrist hard. "Come on, Oh-chan," Nino says.

Ohno closes his eyes, and then slides down Nino's body.

At first Nino sits up on his elbows to watch, but then Ohno slips a spit-slick finger into Nino, and it's all he can do to not come right then. He can't imagine anything feeling this good - intense, but so, so good - and it's not just Ohno stretching him open, one finger at a time, but it's also the ebb and flow of their power going through him, building up a little more each time, the light getting brighter and brighter behind his eyes.

"Oh-chan," he says; he needs more, he wants to touch Ohno more. "Oh-chan, come here, come here -"

They kiss again, and Nino brackets Ohno's hips with his legs. Ohno gets the idea, and pushes in almost before Nino can appreciate it properly.

This stretch is not like that of Ohno's fingers. Somehow Ohno had gotten more than spit-slick, but he still feels huge in Nino's ass, static and shocks building up between them again. Nino moans, he can't help it; it's still not enough. "Ah, Oh-chan," he starts, then throws his head back when Ohno moves.

He can feel Ohno reaching for more, pushing out of his body, and Nino meets him the middle, kissing him and trying to do something, anything, to push them that bit further. He hitches his legs up around Ohno's waist, and Ohno goes faster, until lightning is ripping out from between them, shocking and unbearable. Ohno's mouth is lit up from within, and Nino wants to eat him alive, eat him alive and come and never stop touching him and never stop, never stop -

-

Nino wakes up wrapped around Ohno, Ohno's arms around him in turn, their naked legs entangled. He wakes up more specifically because Koda-sensei has slid open the screen and is letting in the morning light.

Plus, she's clapping delightedly, grinning in a way that would be lecherous on anyone else, but just seems par for the course for her. Nino can't even bring himself to feel embarrassed.

Her nails flash so brightly in the sunlight. "Seriously," Nino grouches, "how do you get your nails like that?"

"A lady never tells her secrets," Koda-sensei says, stepping inside and over the futon. Ai-chan and Nono follow after her with a tray full of breakfast, and that's when Nino makes Ohno grab for their yukata, still strewn on the floor.

"So," Koda-sensei says once they're a little more presentable and the futon is folded away, "can you feel the way magic knows you differently now?"

Ohno is sleepy-eyed and calm. "I can feel the way his magic works in his body, the way it...is nice," he trails off, looking at Nino for confirmation.

Nino grins at him. The sparks are still there, climbing through him, but Nino knows what to do with them now.

"You had fun, I take it?" Koda-sensei asks, sipping at her tea.

They'd had fun for hours.

"A lady never tells," Nino says, and somehow he keeps his composure when Koda-sensei and Ohno both burst out laughing. He and Ohno hold hands while they eat; Nino has never before been so pleased to be left-handed. He doesn't know how far he and Ohno can go, or what they'll accomplish, but he knows this: it will be amazing, and he isn't ever going to let go.


End file.
